Mariners Still Won’t Play Ball While Team Pursues Sale, Board Plans To Forge Ahead On Opening New Ballpark

The Seattle Mariners formally terminated all ties Monday with the stadium district building their new $384 million ballpark. The district, however, forged ahead with plans to open the baseball stadium for the American League franchise by 1999.

A day after Gov.-elect Gary Locke and Metropolitan King County Council members made desperate promises to woo the team back to the bargaining table, Mariners CEO John Ellis delivered the Public Facilities District a tersely worded letter terminating a joint development agreement and lease negotiations.

“John Ellis told me this afternoon there will be no negotiations … and certainly not with the county,” said Bob Hartley, a long-time Mariners consultant, who has become team spokesman for the duration of the baseball crisis. “Our position hasn’t moved an inch. We’ve heard and listened to all that has been going on, and nothing has changed.”

In fact, he said the Mariners are actively working with Major League Baseball’s acting commissioner, Bud Selig, to win permission to put the team officially up for sale.

Nonetheless, the Public Facilities District board agreed to keep operating for at least the next week at a cost of $500,000. Under state law, they could keep going until June 30, 1997, without a Mariners lease. So far, they have spent $18 million on the project.

The board asked King County officials to deliver on a promise made by Locke on Sunday to provide interim financing so the district can continue to acquire property and complete design work for the $363.5 million ballpark and the $20.5 million parking garage. District executive director Ken Johnsen said the county must come up with a $15 million to $20 million line of credit by then if it wants to keep the fast-tracked project on target.

“Speeches are one thing,” board member Ruth Massinga said. “Now we need real action by the county executive and County Council.”

Locke’s chief of staff, Kevin Raymond, said he planned to sit down with district officials today to talk about the interim financing. But he said it would likely be a tough policy decision for the council because it would be money the county could lose.

“The council will have to wrestle with it because it will be money that can be reimbursed if the project goes forward, but not if it doesn’t,” Raymond said.

Newly appointed council budget chairman Chris Vance said he agreed it was time for the county to make good on the promise. But he said no one has figured out exactly where that money will come from. “We’ll start working (today) to figure it out,” he said.

Despite the official termination by the Mariners of lease negotiations, the stadium district board also decided to take a final version of the lease to the team today.

Friday, the team and district were close to finalizing the terms of the 20-year lease, both Ellis and district officials have said.

District board members had planned to approve a lease they thought would please the Mariners on Monday. But Ellis’ letter convinced them to try to talk to the team before assuming they knew what the M’s wanted, board chairwoman Joan Enticknap said.

She said acting before talking to the team “could box them in a corner.”

But board member Shelly Yapp voted against the lease delay, saying it would give the Mariners an opportunity to undo the hard-fought battles the district had won for the public interest in the lease.

Team officials have insisted they are done talking. But Johnsen said he is confident he can reach an official to discuss the lease.

The board decided to meet Wednesday afternoon to decide what to do based on the Mariners’ reaction.

Saturday, Ellis stunned the region with the announcement the team is for sale. He said the County Council’s anti-ballpark attitude had convinced team owners the ballpark wouldn’t be a reality by 1999, and the M’s need it by then to stay afloat financially.

A still-shaken County Executive-elect Ron Sims said he had arranged a meeting with one of the team’s 16 owners later this week.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Heath Foster Seattle Post-Intelligencer